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Dunstan Times, Issue 923, 26 December 1879, Page 2

A CASE involving points of great interest to nearly every class, resident in the neighbourhood of lands held under pastoral lease, was lately heard in the District Court, Naseby, before His Honour Judge Harvey. It was an action for damages caused by' a dog to a flock of ewes and lambs, and resulted in a verdict of L 25 damages, and costs, amounting in all to L 46 14s. The facts of the case, so far as can lie gleaned from tlie evidence, were that a flock of ewes and lames had been worried by a dog proved to have been the property of the defendant in the case, who, however, contended that he had told the dog some time previous to the cause of action arising. His Honour, in giving judgment, said that the owner knowing the d">; to be a vicious one ought to have killed it and not sold it. Our contemporary tbo Mount Id . Chronicle in commencing on the case, says : “that a precedent is now established which will have the effect of sotting at rest any doubts which miy hate existed as to the liability of owners of dogs, not alone for the actual destruction which these latter may commit, but also for the chasing and worn ing of stock, and the general violation of '.lie right of peaceful possession widen may for the lime being vest in any poison owning or occupying I aim It is certainly not too much to expect that those who keep dogs should take pr >por care of them, and if they never saw the" necessity of doing so before, we are inclined to think that

the recent decision in lii-j District Court will have tlie eff.-et of putting ill: ni..t ter in a light whioh cannot lie mistaken We most cordially agree with our eoiuem

J-Oraiy. No greater eoueeivaole nuisance exists than the hordes of mongrel ears, varied in siz 1 from a donkey to a no, that are to be found scattered through the conn

try roaming at large, a terror to everything that moves ; and though in this particular ease the damages were heavy, it is to be hope i the lesson will he well conned, and will act as a kind of check on the fancy of keeping a dog and allowing it the latitude of a freebooter.